League of Conservation Voters Scorecard
Ignores Important Environmental Votes, But Includes Abortion and
Campaign Finance Reform

DATE: February 28, 2002

BACKGROUND: The League of Conservation Voters (LCV)
released their 2001 National Environmental Scorecard on February
20, 2002. The scorecard claims to demonstrate which elected officials
had a pro-environment voting record in 2001 and which did not.
However, important environmental votes were ignored in the scorecard
while other issues, including abortion and campaign reform, were
included.

This rigging of the scorecard resulted in artificially high
scores for liberal elected officials while providing support for
the liberal stance on abortion and campaign reform.

Important environmental votes ignored in the scorecard included
Brownfields revitalization, which allows for economic development
in predominately minority neighborhoods through the cleanup of
polluted urban industrial sites, and the Pacific Salmon Recovery
Act. Non-environmental votes included opposition to limiting federal
family planning grants to overseas organizations to those that
do not carry out abortions and support for Senator McCain's campaign
finance reform bill.

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: The LCV ignored important environmental
issues in its scorecard while including other issues important
to liberals, including abortion and campaign finance reform.

THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE: The LCV's decision to ignore
votes on important environmental legislation while including votes
on other issues betrays the LCV as an organization interested
in promoting a liberal agenda. Although the LCV has the right
to score any votes it wishes, users of the scorecard should realize
that the scorecard provides a more accurate barometer of an elected
official's liberalism than his or her dedication to safeguarding
the environment.

DISCUSSION: The LCV's scorecard betrays LCV's liberalism
and seems to be designed to provide high "environmental"
scores to liberal elected officials and lower ones to moderates
and conservatives, regardless of their votes on the full range
of environmental issues.

LCV scored eight votes in the Senate and fourteen in the House
of Representatives. For the Senate votes, it determined that a
vote on campaign finance reform was a vote on an environmental
issue. However, it did not include the Brownfields Revitalization
Act, which some consider to be the most important piece of environmental
legislation of this Congress. For the House, a vote on restricting
taxpayer support for overseas family planning organizations to
those that do not carry out abortions was considered worthy of
inclusion. However, the LCV did not include the Pacific Salmon
Recovery Act, which received support from both sides of the political
spectrum.

By choosing to score only issues with overwhelming liberal
support, and little if any support from conservatives, the LCV
delivered artificially high marks to liberals and artificially
low ones to conservatives. Senate Democrats averaged a score of
82 (out of 100) while Senate Republicans averaged nine. House
Democrats were regarded highly as well, scoring an average of
81 while the Republicans in the House averaged a 16. Had votes
on Brownfields legislation and the Pacific Salmon Recovery Act
been included in the scorecard, and votes on abortion and campaign
reform (at its heart a free speech, rather than environmental,
issue) not been included, these scores would have been very different.